Firefly Mk2 point 4: In Dreams
by BDM
Summary: Could the last 500 years of Alan Tyler's existence really have been a dream? A rip-off/tribute to one of my favourite episodes of Batman: The Animated Series.
1. The Tomb

**FIREFLY Mk2.4: IN DREAMS**

**The Tomb**

"The Faces."

That was Alan Tyler's first entry in a small game that he was introducing to his crew on board the Firefly-class transport ship _Serenity_. The objective was to name music bands that shared their name with a part of the human body. It was one that he had often played with the people he was working with during down-time, back in the days when he was a G-Chaser and later a Shadowrunner. His crew's musical knowledge was surprisingly acute; at least that was one thing they all seemed to share in common, in spite of coming from radically different backgrounds as they all lounged around in the comfortable common room on the ship.

"Little Feet," the griffin-like gargoyle and First Mate Alistair said.

"Nine Inch Nails," Rachel Tam, the young engineer, chimed in. "As in finger and toe nails."

"Good one," Alan muttered, nodding his approval. He had been about to call out Rachel on that choice, but she had come up with a swift explanation.

"Thumbscrew," the Hispanic weapons specialist José Lovano offered. "I played for that band when I was a teenager."

"No," Alan said flatly. "It has to be a band people have heard of. Radiohead."

"Gerry and the Pacemakers," Alistair said, with a grin.

"Objection, Your Honour!" Rachel cut in, before bursting out laughing.

"Sustained," Alan replied.

"Well, it was worth a shot," Alistair shrugged.

"The Flaming Lips," Rachel said, in-between snorts of laughter.

"Doctor Hook and the Medicine Show," José chimed in.

"What?" Alan said, indignantly.

"Well, you know," José said, "some people lose their hands, right? Well, back before bio-syntech they sometimes put hooks on the stump."

"Oh, sod off!" Alan scoffed, now trying not to laugh himself. "The hook's not a part of the body, is it?"

"It is if you haven't got a hand, amigo," José shrugged. The game was officially over at this point, as any attempts to think of names were drowned out by noisy laughter. Rachel threw a cushion in José's direction, nearly causing him to fall off his chair.

"_Captain,"_ the voice of the android pilot Bishop suddenly said over the ship's intercom, _"I apologise for the interruption, but I'm receiving a transmission from the Divine Journey. Cujo wants to talk with you."_

"Balls..." Alan muttered, getting to his feet. "I guess this means the end of our down-time. Everyone to your stations."

"Aye-aye, Captain," Rachel said. As she passed Alistair heading to the stairs to the engine room, both of them shared an awkward look. Both of them had apparently silently agreed not to discuss the bad decisions made which had nearly torn the team apart little over a week ago. José didn't move from the chair he was sitting on, while Alistair followed Alan into the cargo bay, up to the gantries and all the way up to the flight deck. Through the viewing ports Alan saw the rest of the Fleet Shadow of Fury; five Sangheili flagships, all of them enormous and positively dwarfing the tiny Firefly. Bishop was sat at the pilot's console, and he pushed his stringy brown hair back as Alan and Alistair entered.

"I'll patch him through to the co-pilot's console now," Bishop said. Alan nodded and sat down at the vacant seat across from Bishop's. He pressed a few buttons and on one of the screens appeared the Sangheili face of Cujo 'Mentatal. In the absence of his friend Telek 'Heros, he was the acting Supreme Commander of the fleet. The light from the nearby control consoles glistened off his golden helmet as he nodded at Alan.

"_Good morning, Alan,"_ he said, his deep voice coming through loud and clear in spite of the lack of obvious tongue in a Sangheili's mouth. The way a Sangheili's mouth was split into four mandibles which quivered while speaking was a sight that Alan was now used to, but it had made him feel nauseous for some time when he first met them.

"Is it?" Alan asked wryly. "It's a bit hard to tell out here in the Black."

"_What would you humans do without chronometers, hm?"_ Cujo asked, returning the wry tone.

"Go barmy, I expect," Alan shrugged.

"_Well, I suggest you keep your sanity for a little while longer,"_ Cujo replied, becoming more business-like. _"I'm sending your unit out on reconnaissance of another planet that's just surfaced on our long-range scanners. It's only a small rock; it shouldn't take too long to do a complete survey."_

"It's a small world after all," Alan suddenly started to sing. Cujo grunted and held a hand up to his forehead.

"_I walked right into that one,"_ he groaned.

"You sure did, Supreme Commander," Alan said, giving a toothy grin, revealing two rows of nothing but sharp fangs. "Anyway, anyone going with us?"

"_Not today, Alan,"_ Cujo replied. _"The system is not very large, and from preliminary scans our target is the only interesting one. We detected some kind of signal coming from somewhere on the planet. It seems to be of UNSC origin; a distress signal, in fact. There's no way to tell how long it's been transmitting, so it's doubtful that it has been answered yet."_

"Ah, now I see why you want us out there," Alan nodded, his expression becoming more serious. "It would be best not to scare them with a dirty big Sangheili ship turning up on their doorstep. Hope they're not expecting too many familiar faces, though."

"_Your world is a very unusual place,"_ Cujo shrugged. _"I highly doubt a Godzilla mutant and a gargoyle will raise too many eyebrows."_

"You'd be surprised," Alan replied. Even by the standards of the strange things that had happened on Earth in the last five centuries a human that had been mutated through government experiments into a miniature Godzilla was almost unheard of. "Right, we'll go look into this. We'll rendezvous with the fleet as soon as we can."

"_I'm sending the coordinates to your pilot right now,"_ Cujo said. _"Wago will be surveying a nearby system in that cluster; he can be with you in moments should you need the assistance."_

"Take Wago's help?" Alan asked in mock indignation. "I think I'd rather let myself get eaten." Wago 'Tawun, in spite of being in command of the largest ship in the fleet (while Telek's ship was absent, at least), was still in the unenviable position of being the fleet's proverbial whipping boy.

"_I'm sure you do,"_ Cujo chuckled. _"Still, he's there if you need him. Good luck on your mission, Alan."_ With that, Cujo signed off. Alan sighed, walking towards Bishop at the pilot's console.

"I should've had him join our little guessing game," he sighed.

"You think they even care about our music, Captain?" José's voice suddenly said, coming from the door. Turning to see him, Alan saw that he was leaning on the doorframe, looking at the screen where Cujo's face had been a few seconds ago with a look of disgust.

"I doubt he's entirely ignorant of it," Alan replied. "Cujo's spent a lot of time around humans; he's bound to have picked up a few things."

"Whatever," José snorted. "So what do the split-faces want with us this time?" Alan rolled his golden, cat-like eyes.

"Just when I think there's hope for you," Alan muttered. He hated it when his gunner insisted on behaving so badly – or at least in that passive-aggressive manner - around their comrades-in-arms; of the crew, José was the one having the most difficulty coming to terms with working alongside the Sangheili. It was true that humans and Sangheili had once been enemies, yet José often acted like the war was still on between them. He was also still smarting after events a fortnight ago, when his behaviour had led to him first being grounded for an away mission, and then thrown in the brig on the _Divine Journey_ when he had tried to fight against the ship's Field Master, Dovi 'Canthon. It had taken him a week to stop limping.

"Anyway," he finally said, resisting the urge to pick a fight with José. "We've got ourselves a UNSC distress signal, so you'll probably be glad to see some humans other than Tom and his lot. Where're we going, Bishop?"

"According to these readings," Bishop said, in his usual calm and collected tone, "we're heading for... Well, this can't be right..." he suddenly said, his brow creasing into a puzzled expression.

"What's up?" Alan asked.

"According to Cujo's coordinates," Bishop replied, "we're setting down on Eletania. It's a small planet in the Hercules system in the Attican Beta cluster." Alan had wondered why Cujo had not mentioned this, but he reasoned that the Sangheili had probably given different names to the planets and clusters when they were doing their own charting of the galaxy. Perhaps they had not paid attention to this particular planet before.

"What's so special about that?" Alan asked.

"Well, by all accounts," Bishop said, "there aren't supposed to be any human colonies on that planet. According to official reports it was deemed unsuitable for habitation and too remote to justify terraforming operations. If one of our distress beacons is there, it should not be."

"I see," Alan muttered. It seemed that he was always intruding on something which others had tried to cover up, regardless of what century it was. "Well, we might as well go there and see what's what. There's always the off-chance that Telek picked up on that signal and is on his way there too; we might run into him. Set a course, Bishop."

"Roger, Captain," Bishop nodded, manipulating the console as if he had been born with it. "ETA approximately sixteen hours. Initiating slip-space sequence." Within a minute the _Serenity_ had broken away from the Fleet Shadow of Fury and had entered the swirling slip-space portal. Even now Alan still considered himself very fortunate to have such technology and the capability to use it.

"I'm bringing up the last known dossier on Eletania," Bishop added. A few seconds later a sheet of statistics had appeared on one of the screens. The android attempted to clarify what it meant, as Alan often had trouble getting his head around the terms used in space travel and planetary surveys.

"Environment suits won't be necessary for exploring the surface," he said, "but respirators are advised as the toxins in the atmosphere will cause anaphylactic shock in any non-native life-form that breathes it."

"An 'almost, but not quite' world..." Alan said, turning to the doorway. "Sounds like Pandora all over again. José, we've got a few hours to get ready for this little excursion. Tell Alistair to get himself sorted too."

"I suppose so, sir," José muttered, shaking his head. "I still don't know why you trust the puto, after what you said happened on that other planet a fortnight ago."

"I'd trust him with my life," Alan snapped, now regretting bringing the rest of his crew into confidence on the issue. "I suggest you show a bit of faith in him as well. The last thing he needs is to start thinking we're against him."

"You trust him too easily, boss," José snarled. "You're too quick to trust the Elites too. One day it'll bite you in the ass."

"Oh, forget it," Alan replied, viciously, marching down the corridor. "I'll tell him myself. You go sling your shit somewhere else for the next sixteen hours. Hopefully you'll choose a wall."

0

Eletania was certainly a very pretty planet. The place looked very Earth-like, with blue skies, grass and clouds. Most of the landmass, however, consisted of very mountainous terrain. The signal was coming from a large plateau, on top of one of the largest mountain ranges. Alan, Alistair and José stepped down the ramp from the airlock between the surface and the cargo bay, equipped with their weapons of choice and fitted with respirators. All three of them were nervous and alert. In spite of its serene appearance the planet somehow carried a sense of great foreboding, and left Alan with very melancholy feelings. There was a strong cool breeze blowing, and the three explorers narrowed their eyes as they ran away from the ship, which took off and was almost blown about by the wind as it set off for space.

The trio ran towards what looked like a large concrete dome with a flat top. When Bishop had picked up the structure on his scanners he was lost for words, for the first time that Alan could recall. This structure alone was definite evidence that someone had been staying on this planet, which had pretty much thrown the official reports out of the airlock. Looking around, Alan saw two grey block-like structures nearby, with pipes sticking out of them and leading into the ground.

"Those must be where they house the fuel supply," Alistair mused as he spotted the towers. In spite of it being broad daylight he was walking around in his flesh form; a side-effect from a very nasty encounter with dark magic. "Anyway, let's get inside and see if anyone's home."

They dashed the last few metres to the airlock door and pressed the button to open it. As it slid open they quickly dashed inside and sealed it shut behind them.

"I guess that means the power's still on," Alan said.

Within seconds they had equalised the pressure in the airlock with the atmosphere inside the bunker. All of the readings on the status monitor inside the airlock indicated that the life-support systems were still operational, so they pulled their respirators off. The inner door slowly slid open, leading to a metal spiral staircase that led down into the depths of the alien soil. Weapons at the ready, the trio stepped down for about a hundred metres. The bottom of the staircase led to another tight space with a door which someone had left open.

The door opened out into a vast laboratory space. In its prime Alan imagined that it must have been a very clean and hi-tech facility, with the blue-steel walls, fluorescent lights and rows of workstations piled high with the finest scientific equipment that money could buy. Now the place looked as if it was out of a warzone; several lights had been shot, there were blast burns scattered on the walls and the equipment and tables were hopelessly smashed. Rather disconcertingly, blood was also smeared on the walls, along with a black substance reminiscent of tar. There was a horrible smell in the air, reminiscent of the stench of a landfill.

"Jesus..." Alan spluttered, trying to resist the urge to vomit. "What the hell's happened here?"

"There's been a hell of a fight here," José said, grimacing at the scenes before him but not showing outward signs of nausea. "Look at all those blast burns and bullet holes... They tore this place up fighting whatever it was they were fighting. The question is whether or not they managed to hole up somewhere."

"I think this'd answer that question..." Alistair suddenly said, sounding like he was about to faint. He had gone further into the room to get a closer look, and as Alan and José went to see what they were looking at the horrible, festering smell suddenly became almost unbearable. When they saw what Alistair had been looking at, Alan very nearly shouted out loud. They saw what looked like human remains, the body shape still roughly intact, but seemingly devoid of skin or muscle. Parts of the skeleton and the organs were still visible, the parts which had not been completely coated by that same black oil substance, preserving them in the sticky resin. A quick glance around the chamber told Alan that there were dozens of other bodies scattered all around the chamber, all of them coated in the same oil. The group was shocked, stunned into silence by what they had seen. A full minute passed before Alan was able to recover his senses long enough to contact the _Serenity_ through his commlink.

"Uh, Bishop?" Alan said quietly. "I think we're going to need an evac soon. Unless the survivors are very well-hidden, something slaughtered everyone here, and I'd rather not stick around to find out what did it."

"_Then that bunker is not the only place that is a tomb,"_ Bishop replied, in a tone of shock. This unnerved Alan slightly, as the android never sounded as if he was fearful before _"I have been running scans on the planet's surface since I arrived back in orbit, and... there is nothing. Eletania is supposed to have its own indigenous life-forms, but I am not picking up any signs of life. I don't understand it... I am not picking up any signs of toxins or cataclysmic natural occurrences which could have caused an extinction-level event... It's as if they have all simply vanished."_

"I can probably guess what happened to them..." Alan replied. "I think you'd better see for yourself." His commlink had a camera function built-in, and so he snapped a few photos of the bodies. He hated having to get in close to take the pictures, as the smell nearly made him faint. When Bishop saw the images appear on his monitors, he was lost for words. He could not think of an adequate thesis for what could have happened to those poor souls; not without any further details, at least.

"Look at this..." José suddenly chimed in. He had gone over to one of the other bodies, and had even nudged it with his boot. Alan considered this crass and was about to say so when José held up what looked like a small, thin rectangle, made of metal with an orange screen.

"Might be a personal log," he said, forcing it into his trouser pocket. "We'll let the professor take a look when we-"

His last word became a yelp of surprise, for something had grabbed his ankle. Looking down, he saw that it was actually the outstretched, oil-covered skeletal hand of the corpse he had just kicked. Worse than that, the twisted face was looking up at him, a pair of milky white eyes like pearls fixing a penetrating glare at him. José shouted and struggled to wrench his foot free, but the putrid creature held fast. It opened its mouth, releasing a horrible, rattling breath. In desperation, José swung his other foot out and kicked the creature hard in the face. The head exploded, scattering the black oil across the walls and the overturned tables.

Even as José backed away from the corpse, Alistair suddenly held a hand up to his head, grunting in pain. Alan noticed this, and then he saw that Alistair's pain was increasing. The gargoyle actually yelled in pain, and as Alan watched he saw that his eyes momentarily flashed a blood-red colour. The eyes of gargoyle males usually shined with a white light when emotions ran high, but the taint in Alistair's body caused them to shine red instead. As more of the oil covered bodies slowly began to stagger to their feet, any attempt to understand what was going on was lost. Alan only knew that sticking around would be an extraordinarily bad idea.

"Bishop!" he called into his commlink. "We need a pickup, and fast!"

"_On my way, sir!"_ Bishop replied, sensing the urgency in Alan's voice.

The sharp, sticky claws of one of the undead creatures stretched out for Alan, but the mutant quickly lashed out with the Technomantic whip that had served him so well. One strike with the crackling energy caused the abomination to disintegrate, sliced in half by the whip's sting. More creatures were approaching, however, and Alan knew they'd never be able to fight them all at once.

Alistair drew one of his Plasma Rifles, but the intense pain in his head was affecting his vision. He felt as if he would collapse at any moment, and his shots went wild. There was a sudden burst of rifle fire from his left, and José came charging towards him, the large ODST-issue assault rifle he carried firing away. He grabbed Alistair's arm and threw it over his shoulder.

"Come on, bird-boy," he snarled. "Don't crash out on us now!"

Alan was the furthest away from the door, and as he systematically cut down the corpse-creatures while backing toward the door he passed a sealed shutter. The lit sign above the door indicated that this lead to the 'Hot Labs'. He hoped that they would be able to retrieve some information from the datapad José had found, as there was no way that he was sticking around to investigate any further.

All of a sudden the shutter raised itself. Alarmed, Alan turned to look down it in case any more zombies were going to spring out at him. However, he didn't get to see what was down there, for a noxious gas suddenly spewed out of the corridor. The gas was a poisonous green colour and smelled foul, like old socks mixed with the type of public toilet that nobody seems to clean. Alan gagged and spluttered, stumbling and trying to find his way out of the terrible cloud. Near to the exit, José called out, his eyes wide. Something was coming out of the corridor towards the mutant.

"Captain!" he shouted. Alan tried to follow the sound of his voice, but he felt himself suddenly becoming very tired. He looked back in the direction of where the smoke had come from, and he barely had time to see a large, insect-like claw suddenly approaching him, about to strike him with a vicious backhand...


	2. Back to Reality

**Back to Reality**

Alan suddenly awakened, gasping. He sat bolt-upright in his shock, his face streaked with sweat. Though his eyes were wide open, his vision was blurred. The memories of what had happened in that bunker were very fresh, and he could not believe that he had fallen into such an obvious trap. The sights in that complex had been too horrible to contemplate. He hoped that the others had been able to find some answers. Speaking of which, he assumed that they had dragged him back to the _Serenity_ after those creatures had attacked, for he was obviously not still in the bunker. They had to have taken him to the infirmary. He was surprised at this; he thought José would have been the sort to save his own neck above all other priorities.

When his eyes refocused, he realised that he wasn't in the infirmary. In fact, he wasn't in any part of the _Serenity_ or in the bunker. Unless he was very much mistaken, he had awakened in an ordinary bedroom in an ordinary apartment. The sounds of traffic could be heard coming from outside, and a regular cityscape could be seen through the windows. A pair of blue jeans, a black shirt and a grey bomber jacket were unceremoniously slouched on a nearby chair. The apartment looked like it had not been tidied for several days.

After what he had seen a few short moments ago, the ordinariness of this place left Alan feeling utterly perplexed. The biggest surprise, however, was yet to come. For as he rolled to move himself out of the bed, he caught sight of his arm. No longer was it covered in hard, grey, pebbly scales and ending in an animalistic four-fingered claw. Now it was a perfectly ordinary human arm, with fine hairs growing out of it and five fingers on the hand. Hardly daring to believe what he was seeing, Alan jumped out of the bed and crossed to the bathroom, taking a good look at himself in the shaving mirror.

Staring back at him was not the reptile mutant that he had gotten so used to seeing. Instead, a human man in his late 30s/early 40s gazed back at him with blue-grey eyes and stubble around the chin and neck. With one hand he felt the skin and rough hairs on his face, while with the other he reached down to the small of his back, noticing that the tail was now gone. Opening his mouth, he now saw that he had a perfectly human mixture of incisors, fangs and molars. There was absolutely no sign that he had ever been a victim of the Crisis Control Intelligence agency's terrible experiments.

Stood still and shocked into silence for several minutes, Alan's heart jumped into his throat at the sudden shrill sound of the telephone. He staggered out of the bathroom and into the main living area, forgetting that he was still not dressed. It was now dawning on him that this was his old apartment in Tokyo. He had lived in the city for nearly twenty years, but that had been hundreds of years ago. He glanced over at a calendar pinned to the wall; according to it, the date was the 12th of April, 2006. He didn't dare to believe it, much less try to figure out how this was possible. He was back, in the early 21st century, in his apartment, back to his human self. He collapsed into a chair and held his head in his hands, feeling as if it would explode if he didn't.

The phone would not cease to ring, so Alan resigned himself to the fact that he would have to answer it. After such a long time of not seeing one, he felt as if the telephone was completely alien, and he very nearly dropped the receiver as he held it up to his ear.

"Moshi-moshi?" he asked, still remembering the Japanese language. If this was indeed Tokyo, then there was not likely to be anybody speaking English on the other end of the line.

"_About time, Alan!"_ a familiar voice said on the other end. _"What took you so long? I've been listening to that phone ring for ages!"_

Now Alan felt as if he needed his ears testing. The voice on the other end of the phone belonged to his old friend Yuji Shinoda, the self-proclaimed 'Kaiju-ologist'. Part of him knew that this was just not possible, but then again everything else that he was seeing should not be. He sat stunned into silence for a moment, only snapped out of his reverie when Shinoda spoke again.

"_Hey, Alan?"_ he asked. _"Where are you? Have you fallen asleep at the phone?"_ Frantically, Alan searched his brain for a story. Telling Shinoda that he had somehow time-travelled from the far future seemed far-fetched even to his ears.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm here," he groaned. "Partied a bit too hard last night."

"_I'm not surprised,"_ Shinoda chuckled. _"You wanted to get every second's worth out of your stag night."_

"Stag night?" Alan stammered.

"_You really are out of it, aren't you?"_ Shinoda asked, sounding slightly annoyed. _"You are still getting married to Miki Saegusa, aren't you?"_

If there was one name Alan had never forgotten, it was Miki Saegusa. Of all the people that he had encountered in his life, she was the one who had been most dear to him. Having to part ways with her when he went into cryo-sleep was the most heart-breaking moment of his life. By rights she shouldn't be in this time period, however; she wasn't supposed to exist for another forty years. He tried to think how he could talk about all that he had seen in front of Shinoda; it was almost a given that he would not believe him.

"Where is she?" he managed to ask.

"_She's been evacuated right now,"_ Shinoda replied. _"The poor girl was so upset; she had been having her wedding dress fitted when the alarms sounded."_

"Evacuated?" Alan asked dumbly.

"_For God's sake, Alan..."_ Shinoda replied, exasperated. _"You must have taken some strong sleeping pills. Don't tell me you slept through the sirens? Gojira's on his way!"_

Alan had been in such a state of shock that he had almost forgotten that, in this time period, he was still a G-Chaser; a freelance photographer who had dedicated himself to discovering the secrets of the titanic monster known as Godzilla. The creature's cells had been used in the experiments that had turned him into a miniature version of Godzilla in the first place. Already those events were starting to feel like a very distant memory to him. He decided that, for the time-being at least, he would play along with whatever was going on here, and try to act like he used to.

"I'll be out there as soon as I can," he said. "Any idea where he's headed?"

"_Towards the bay area,"_ Shinoda replied. _"You can meet us at the highway by the harbour; that's the best place to view from. See you there, and hurry; you have about ten or fifteen minutes."_ With that, he hung up.

Alan quickly got himself dressed, grabbed the camera standing on the bedroom desk and left the apartment. As he headed to the elevators it all started to come back to him. He knew where to go, what streets to take and how to use these 21st century implements; it was just like recalling a set of blueprints in his mind. He still could not get over the fact that he was here at all; it was too disturbing, and yet too wonderful, to fully process.

He stepped out of the elevator and into the underground car park, where amongst the various old cars he found another familiar sight; his black Kawasaki motorcycle. He had missed many chances to ride similar vehicles as time had worn on, so to find himself reunited with what had once been his dearest possession was almost too good to be true. Sitting himself in the saddle and starting the engine, the throbbing feeling against his legs was one which he had missed terribly. The bike roared out of the car park and into the dazzling sunshine over 21st-century Tokyo. He weaved his way through the streets, which looked somewhat empty, but this shouldn't have surprised him given that the evacuation had taken place. Only a few stragglers were left, and Alan paid no attention to them. He just wanted to get to the site where he would see his old friend again, and he knew the route like the back of his hand.

Weaving through the abandoned cars and speeding down the highway, Alan eventually reached a corner of the road that looked out over the bay. It was a spectacular view; Alan had often come here first whenever a chase was on, just to see Godzilla arriving on Japanese soil. The monster had been attracted to the nuclear (and later plasma) power plants, and since Japan was the nearest landmass to his refuge on Ogasawara Island the Japanese people would always have to endure his 'visits'. On rare occasions Godzilla would go the other way to the American West Coast, but he largely stayed near Japan, becoming some kind of unofficial (not to mention very destructive) mascot.

As he approached the viewpoint, he found that a small group was waiting for him. Two figures were astride motorcycles like himself, while there was also a silver car parked close by with the logo of the Godzilla Prediction Network emblazoned on the side. The GPN was dedicated to studying Godzilla, attempting to track his movements and sell the data to businesses and insurance companies, often working closely with freelance G-Chasers such as Alan to do so. The general idea was to help the populace adapt to Godzilla, rather than try to fight a losing battle against him. Government agencies had tried to shut them down in the past with no success.

Almost as soon as Alan arrived, a loud, trumpet-like roar could be heard above the whoosh of spray from the sea. Alan not heard it for centuries, but he would recognise it anywhere. It was the roar of Godzilla, and now he could see the titanic reptile emerging from the ocean, covered in the familiar slate-grey scales and with three rows of dorsal spines sticking out of the back. The long tail lashed around behind him, sending sea spray everywhere. Alan was lost for words; it had been too long since he had last seen Godzilla anywhere, and he had not realised how much he had missed seeing his surrogate father, though the notion that he was ever related to Godzilla now seemed distinctly remote.

"Finally dragged yerself here, did ya?" said a voice with a Texan drawl behind him. Alan turned to see that it was one of the other two motorcyclists who had spoken. The speaker was a blond-haired young man with piercing blue eyes. Beside him was a Japanese national with silver hair and lines on his face. Alan's jaw fell open as he recognised his G-Chasing compatriots Joel Sellinger and Tetsuo Yagame. The last time Alan had seen them they were not human; they had been victims of the experiments with Organiser G-1 just like Alan was. Tetsuo had been driven insane with his alter-ego Kaiser, while Joel had been barely capable of thinking above the level of an animal. Yet there they both were, smiling and human.

"What's wrong, Alan?" Tetsuo asked kindly. "You look like you've seen a ghost." Alan shook his head, hardly daring to believe his eyes. He wanted to say something – anything – about what he knew would happen to them, but the words came undone in his throat. The more he tried to think about those terrible events the less real they seemed to be.

"Nothing," he eventually mumbled.

"Thank Christ," Joel said jokingly. "Let's just get some snaps. The papers will be looking out for these, if nothing else." So all three chasers held up their cameras and began to snap their photos. From this position they were able to get some terrific views. Alan already found himself planning to move further down the highway to get more progress shots of Godzilla as he made his way inland to the plasma plant. It was as if the events he had witnessed before this had never happened.

"Keep it steady, Io!" a voice was shouting in Japanese to his left. Alan turned to see the GPN's car, with the scruffy-looking scientist Yuji Shinoda at the driver's seat. In the passenger seat next to him was Yuki Ichinose, a reporter who had been assigned to work with the GPN in their pursuit of the exclusives on Godzilla. She and Shinoda had a very rocky start to their working relationship, but Alan remembered hearing that they had gotten married after the last time they had parted ways. That had been after King Ghidorah's attack in Knoxville, but looking around it was hard to believe that had really happened. Leaning out of one of the back windows was Shinoda's young daughter Io, pointing a handheld sensor device in Godzilla's direction. Seeing Alan, Shinoda gave a quick thumbs-up to him before returning to his data-gathering. Alan, his sense of astonishment growing all the time, looked back towards Godzilla when he heard the sound of jet engines overhead.

"Here he comes again..." Tetsuo said. Looking up, Alan saw another familiar sight, one which he had been spent weeks searching for; the very reason he had gone out into space in the first place. He had not expected to see him again under these circumstances.

Kiryuu Knight was being carried into the area, suspended in the air by thick cables attached to three large Shirisagi aircraft. As they approached Godzilla, the cables were released, and the giant bio-mechanical dinosaur landed smoothly, assisted by jets on his body. The first thing Alan had noticed was that his face was covered by the metallic helmet that, for a long time, was the only face Alan had known him to have. He still remembered the incredible shock he had when first seeing the helmet come clean away, revealing the face of the first Godzilla underneath.

"Afraid of messing your dreadlocks up, granddad?" he thought aloud as he snapped photos of Kiryuu's shining metallic body.

"Come again?" Joel said, in a thoroughly confused tone. Alan turned to look at him, now puzzled himself.

"Don't you remember?" Alan asked. "Kiryuu's got his helmet on. I was just wondering if he was afraid of messing up his dreadlocks."

"What are you talkin' about?" Joel asked. "Kiryuu ain't got any dreads. That hunk o' tin is his face. You forgotten that? I'm sure I heard you callin' him yer grandpappy too. I think you've been hangin' around Godzilla too long." He gave a good-natured chuckle at this, but Alan continued to look very confused. He was positive that he remembered Kiryuu having a face of flesh and emerald-green dreadlocks. It was one of his most vivid memories. He shook his head, turning back towards the two Godzillas.

Kiryuu was in the process of pushing Godzilla back towards the ocean, an idea which Godzilla was resisting fiercely. He tried to use his blue plasma breath, but Kiryuu punched him, throwing off-balance. Alan was sure that Kiryuu wouldn't be acting like this normally, but then again he didn't expect a machine to be capable of emotion, only of carrying out orders from the human controllers. The idea of Kiryuu having dreadlocks or a 'real' face now also seemed very silly to him for some reason. He satisfied himself with watching the short-lived fight, as Godzilla was beaten back. Evidently realising that he was outclassed, he waded back out towards the ocean, the Mechagodzilla watching him depart.

"Another short visit," Shinoda then said. "Before that Mekagojira surfaced, I had a lot of time to gather data. Nowadays I'm lucky if I have a few minutes." He sighed wearily as he stepped out of his car. "That'll do, Io. Let's pack up and call it a day."

"Hai, papa," Io nodded, climbing back into the rear seat of the car, sitting amongst a pile of computer equipment. Alan couldn't help smiling as he saw them; he could not believe he was reunited with the Shinodas, who had been among his oldest, dearest friends back in the 21st century. He wondered why he kept referring to the century in the past tense; it seemed that, once again, this was his century. He felt like he had finally come home after a long journey.

"Alan?" Shinoda asked. Some of what Alan was thinking must have shown on his face, for the scientist looked a bit worried. "Are you sure you're alright?"

"Yeah..." Alan said, in a faint voice. He turned back to see Godzilla submerge into the deep ocean water and begin swimming out towards the horizon. For the first time in such a long time, he felt at peace.

"Everything's great," he said.


	3. World of Illusion

**World of Illusion**

A short time later, Alan had returned to his apartment. Shinoda had promised to stop by Alan's apartment later for a post-chase discussion, once he had gotten Io and his equipment home. Yuki, Joel and Tetsuo were already setting off to develop their own photographs. All of them had said Alan was a very lucky man to be marrying a woman like Miki Saegusa, and made him swear that he would not place himself in too much peril with his G-Chasing; they didn't want to see Miki having to bury her husband.

Alan had tried to ask about the CCI, but none of them seemed to have any knowledge of the CCI's workings. The name was mud among them, however, for their attempts to shut down the activities of both the GPN and the G-Chasers that had taken place for years. As Alan walked back into his apartment he was still surprised that the events which he could remember so clearly – the experiments, Kiryuu's true appearance, et al – were completely unheard of to those that he had trusted with all of his most dangerous secrets.

Now that he was back in this century, however, the events of the past 500 years now seemed like a very vivid dream. Maybe time worked differently in a dream, and everything that had happened – the experiments, the Shadowruns, going up into space, all of it – had all occurred in one night. Now that he thought about it, it all sounded so absurd. Dragons, aliens, government conspiracies, secret experiments in genetic mutation and demons from beyond the boundaries of time and reality all now sounded like something out of a very bad comic book. He relaxed in the large recliner in his living room, closed his eyes and smiled to himself; dwelling on such insane dreams would never do him any good. It was the year 2006, and tomorrow he would be getting married to the most incredible woman he had ever met. It was time for him to grow up, and he was looking forward to it.

He would have been content with this, had it not been for the static. At first the buzzing noise was very quiet, and Alan had passed it off as someone's TV in one of the other apartments. However, as it grew louder, Alan began to realise that it was coming from much closer. Opening his eyes he saw that the TV in his apartment had somehow turned itself on. He couldn't recall nudging the TV remote, and reached over to the coffee table for it. He tried to turn the TV off, but to no avail; it continued to flash in front of him, the snowstorm on the screen accompanied by the buzzing noise.

He then noticed that it wasn't just the TV; the radio was also buzzing loudly, having switched itself on and apparently detuned. Alan tried to tune it into a station, but there was nothing but static on all channels, and the buzzing was growing louder. He even went so far as to try to switch both off at the plug on the wall, but to no avail. He continued to look at the TV screen, shaking his head in disbelief. Everything had seemed so normal to him just a moment ago; now his electronic equipment was acting as if it was possessed.

The static sound persisted, drilling right into his brain. He covered his ears, trying to shut out the noise, but it seemed to be coming from inside his head. Amidst the static, however, he heard voices, faintly at first but increasing in volume.

"_Are you sure this'll work, Bish?"_

The voice he heard carried a Cockney accent, and as Alan looked at the TV screen, he saw a face amidst the static. It was a horrible face, like that of a large eagle, complete with a beak and a tuft of hair. He could see on the screen that it was flanked by two large wings. It seemed to be regarding Alan with a shrewd expression, and he had the horrible feeling that he knew that face from somewhere, like one from a dream he had had recently.

"_It may be his only chance,"_ another voice said, this one much more reserved and calmer. The face on the screen had twisted and morphed into a human face, a balding man with lanky hair, looking at Alan with the same piercing gaze. _"I realise it's a long shot, but I cannot think of a better idea for this particular condition."_

"_I hope you're right,"_ the Cockney voice said again, complete with the image of the eagle-man. _"It's my fault; I should've sensed that creature earlier."_

"_There's no way you could have known,"_ a woman's voice said, and the eagle-man on the screen turned into a perky-looking young woman with long brown hair. _"Bishop's plan will work. I'm sure it will!"_

"_We're wasting time with this bullshit, professor,"_ another man's voice snarled, and the ever-changing face became another man, this one with short spiky hair and a goatee. _"I'm gonna try my method... Wake up, you useless great chupaverga!"_ the voice suddenly shouted, loud enough to temporarily blot out Alan's thoroughly-scrambled thoughts.

All of a sudden Alan felt the ground tilt to the left and shake violently. He was thrown off his feet and fell hard to the floor, as everything shook all around him. The room suddenly tilted right, and Alan rolled down, crashing into the wall just underneath the window. Strangely nothing was falling off the shelves or toppling over; everything in the room remained completely stationary, the TV and the radio still buzzing loudly. As the room shook again and tilted back upright, Alan rolled back towards the TV and staggered to his feet. He breathed hard, sweat pouring down his face, now completely terrified. There had been no screams of anyone else feeling the sudden shifting of the Earth; just the buzzing of the infernal static.

"_José!"_ the woman's voice then said indignantly. _"Stop it! You're just hurting him!"_

"_Hey, he's unconscious, isn't he?"_ the Latino man – presumably José - said nonchalantly. _"I doubt he felt anything, if he's as deep as you say."_

"_Not deep enough to be completely unaware,"_ the man known as Bishop in a disapproving tone. _"I think we should all leave him be now and hope for the best."_

"_Not yet!"_ the Cockney-voiced eagle-man said indignantly. _"Come on, Alan! Wherever you are, get out of it and come back to us! You haven't given up on your crew yet, Captain! Don't do so now!"_

"_Come on, Alistair,"_ Bishop said, in a calming, fatherly tone. _"There's nothing else we can do for now. We should get back to the flight deck and see how Wago is faring. I'm turning the microphone off now..."_

Both TV and radio suddenly went silent. Alan was shocked, breathing hard and stunned into silence. He was trembling from head to foot, and resisting an urge to be violently sick. All around him the room showed no signs that anything had happened, but Alan was sure that he had not imagined the strange events. He pinched himself hard, and it hurt so much he was sure that he was not dreaming. His electronics really had started to broadcast strange messages to him, from faces that seemed to know him. He tried to think carefully about what could have done such a thing; it had to have been something extraordinarily powerful to interfere like that. He could not even begin to fathom how they could still have been operational even without a power supply, or how it could have stayed so loud when he covered his ears, or the sudden shifts in the ground that seemed to affect only him. A horrible nagging feeling that there was a fundamental truth he didn't want to admit was gnawing at him, but he quickly silenced those thoughts, not wanting to believe them.

It was then that, deep in his gut, he had the feeling that he knew who could do such a thing. He recalled a time when this being had entered his life and would never leave it. He was sure that this had to have been the work of Kiryuu Knight, the one person who would be capable of doing this. He was sure that he had not imagined the bio-mechanical being's sentience or capabilities; he had to have done this as some new form of torture, some new kind of test.

He knew that he had to find the answers for himself, and that meant going right to the source. Immediately he ran straight back out of the apartment and down to the garage. Within seconds he was back on his motorcycle and moving out of the city as fast as the speed limits would allow. He knew that he had to head for the road towards Yokohama. Maybe he was just imagining it, but he thought that the road signs looked rather fuzzy, as if he was looking at them through a badly-focused telescope.

He tried to focus his efforts on reaching his destination. He was soon at the city limits and speeding out onto the coastal road. There were few other cars about, which he was thankful for; he could not afford to let anything impede his progress. He had to act now, while he still had the element of surprise.

About ten miles out from the city, he finally found what he was looking for, exactly where he remembered it. It was a plain-looking office building, five storeys tall, with two large chimney stacks alongside it pumping white steam into the atmosphere. This was the Yokohama branch office of the Utah Foundation, the American company which had created the material used in bio-syntech, the synthetic muscle tissue which had been used to replace lost limbs. That same muscle tissue was a part of Kiryuu's systems, for the Utah Foundation had constructed him and programmed his hyper-advanced AI. If there were answers to be found, Alan reasoned that they had to be here.

He turned down the side-road leading to the building and roared into the large car-park. There was a second parking area close by, cordoned off by marker cones with lights attached. Alan was sure about what lay under there, but the only way to it was to go through the building itself. The brakes on his motorbike squealed as Alan came to a stop outside the front entrance. He dismounted and dashed to the door, the bike toppling over as it was unsupported.

He ran through the doors and found himself in a plain-looking reception area. There was a concession stand in one corner near various chairs, acting as a makeshift waiting area. Photos lined the walls which, as Alan recalled, showed various happy patients after bio-syntech operations, but now they seemed to lack detail, the faces strangely blurred. He ran through the reception area, ignoring the receptionist's calls of "Can I help, sir? Sir?" and heading into one of the corridors in the back.

He had the distinct feeling that he had been here before, and that there had been a corridor which he had wanted to explore but could not. Almost immediately he saw it; a long corridor leading to a set of elevator doors. There was also a chair with a guard sat in it, but Alan paid him no attention. He marched down the corridor, keeping his eyes fixed on the door.

He was dimly aware that the guard had approached him, but he only had time to say "Sir, this area-" before Alan shoved him aside, not looking at him. He broke into a run as the guard shouted after him. Reaching the door, he quickly opened it and stepped inside, jabbing the bottom-most button on the panel. As the doors closed, Alan saw the guard running towards him, and a sight made him stop dead in his tracks. As the doors closed and the elevator began to move swiftly downwards, he shook himself. He could not have seen what he thought he had seen, and in any case he had to focus and try to think of what he was going to do when he reached the bottom of this elevator. The journey seemed to be taking a lifetime, but at last the elevator came to a rest and the doors slowly opened.

Alan ran out into a small antechamber, with two doors leading off from it. If he remembered right, the door in front of him would lead to the control room, while the other door would lead to where he needed to be. For some reason he now felt very dislocated, as if this place was somewhere thousands of miles away from where he had entered. He was convinced that had nothing to do with merely being underground. He ran towards the side-door and stepped through it, hardly daring to breathe.

He now found himself inside a cavernous hangar, stretching for hundreds of feet below him and lined with various metal gantries crossing all over the place. Stood in the centre of the hangar was the towering Mechagodzilla known to him as Kiryuu Knight, and above Kiryuu was a large door which opened onto the surface. Strangely, Kiryuu's helmet was still in place, and there seemed to be no sign of activity from him at all. Alan dashed along the gantries until he was on the one directly in front of Kiryuu's face. Behind him he could hear the sound of alarms and shuffling feet. Someone looking from the control room was bound to have seen him, and he knew that he would not have much time. He kept his eyes focused on Kiryuu, his face contorting in anger.

"Here I am!" he shouted at the bio-mechanical dinosaur. "What do you want from me now, Chrome Crotch? Answer me!"

Kiryuu, however, did not answer. He remained silent and as stiff as a statue. Alan tried again, even as he heard the door leading to the control room crash open.

"Kiryuu!" he shouted. "Don't play deaf with me! You know what's going on here! Tell me, god-damnit!"

It was then that he realised something was wrong about Kiryuu. From this distance he should have been able to clearly see Kiryuu's real eyes, whether they were open or closed, behind the amber screens on his helmet. However, Alan saw nothing. The helmet's eyes were completely blank and expressionless. This Kiryuu was just a robot; completely inert unless activated by its masters.

Just as this realisation dawned on him, he was grabbed from behind and held fast by several hands. Alan struggled, but the grip was too strong, and he found himself being dragged away from Kiryuu's face. He tried to shout for help, but to no avail. Kiryuu was not going to come to help him here. As he struggled, he got a good look at the guards that had grabbed him, and he actually yelled out loud. So he had truly seen it; his mind was not playing tricks on him...

The guards had no faces.

0

"And if you ever so much as set foot in the parking lot again, we're pressing charges!"

The voice belonged to another face from his past; the scruffy-looking computer nerd known as William Penter, who had been one of Kiryuu's team members back in the 21st century. Penter's face was the only one that wasn't blank, and he seemed completely unperturbed by the horrifying blank faces of everyone around him. There was nothing but skin on those faces, making them resemble marionettes. As Will and his faceless guards marched back into the Yokohama building, Alan picked himself up from the ground. The guards had roughed him up badly, and he was barely able to stagger to his feet. Besides all that, a vicious thunderstorm was about to blow through the area, and the rain began to fall, bouncing off the concrete.

Alan had never felt so frightened, confused and alone. He simply could not understand what was going on now. This world no longer felt real to him; most of the key details like the faces of people he knew were still there, but certain other details had been omitted entirely, or at least were hard to focus on. The strange occurrences in his apartment could not be explained, and the nightmarish sights he had seen in the Foundation building really were the last straw. He didn't go back to his motorbike straightaway, instead moving around the side of the building to where a large pile of garbage laid awaiting collection. He was afraid to talk about what had happened with Shinoda or any of his other friends; after all, they obviously didn't remember Kiryuu's real face. He was becoming more convinced that they were also part of some unexplainable plot. He buried his head in his hands, calling his own sanity into question.

"Alan," a deep, handsome voice suddenly said from somewhere amongst the garbage. Looking towards the pile he saw what looked like a homeless man, dressed from head to foot in rags and his face concealed. He was looking earnestly in Alan's direction, and pointing around the garbage pile. "Get round here before somebody sees you."

As the tramp moved around the garbage pile and out of view, Alan's first instinct was to run for it. The last thing he wanted was some other figure in this world to be targeting him and frightening him once again. However, he was also curious that this figure knew his name, as did the voices from the TV set. The tone of the tramp's voice had sounded so agitated, as if he had been expecting somebody to jump out at him at any second. In the end, Alan's curiosity got the better of him and he slowly edged his way around the garbage pile, his fists clenched. He found the tramp leaning against the wall, rubbing his shoulders, now sheltered from the rain. Now that Alan had got a closer look at him, he noticed that the body shape was very strange, as if this figure was bulkier than the average human being. Alan approached him cautiously, his face looking very nervous.

"Whatever you are," he snarled, "I'm not in the mood for any games. What the fuck do you want from me?"

The tramp sighed, moving his hands up to the large, face-covering hood on the ragged coat he was wearing. As the long sleeves began to slip, Alan's first shock came when he saw that the hands were in fact metallic claws. As the hood fell away revealing the stranger's face, Alan let out an audible gasp. For the face he was now seeing was Kiryuu Knight's grey-scaled reptilian face, with a set of long emerald-green bio-syntech dreadlocks draping over his shoulders. This was the face that should have been seen underneath the helmet of the Kiryuu in the hangar, yet here it was as clear as day for him to see. This Kiryuu gazed at Alan with his golden cat-like eyes, the snout forming a weary smile.

"Now really, Alan," he said, his handsome voice sounding tired, "is that any way to talk to your grandfather?"


	4. Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction

**Truth is Stranger than Fiction**

Once he was over the shock of actually seeing Kiryuu standing in front of him, at human size, what alarmed Alan about Kiryuu's appearance was just how exhausted he looked. He was breathing hard and there were visible lines on his face. He looked like he had run two marathons. He was trying to put on a brave face, but Alan was still shocked. He had not expected Kiryuu to look so tired, so human.

"I know the idea of us being related must be hard to believe now," Kiryuu said. "You look just like your photo from the Beta Experiment file." He looked all around him anxiously, as if expecting something to jump out at them. "It must be one of the effects of being in this world; a condition for your imprisonment..."

"Imprisonment?" Alan stammered. "What the hell's going on?" He held a hand up to his forehead. "I remember you and what you look like, but... Nothing else makes sense anymore..."

"That's the effect these dreams have on you," Kiryuu said urgently. "I have been feeling such effects myself. I have been having a hard time reminding myself of what is real."

"This world feels pretty damn real to me!" Alan half-shouted. What Kiryuu was saying did not make sense, and that was saying a lot considering what had happened to him earlier. "You're not making any sense!"

"Alan..." Kiryuu snarled, his weariness giving way to frustration. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"Waking up this morning," Alan replied, rubbing his temples. "I woke up from this nightmare I was having. Something about a ton of gas, and this monster stepping out of it..."

"What do you remember before that?" Kiryuu asked. "Do you remember what you did yesterday, or the day before?"

Now Alan had to admit that he was stumped. He certainly could not remember what had happened on those days. He didn't even have any rough ideas. It was as if everything before that nightmare was a complete blank. He shook his head at Kiryuu, hardly daring to believe it.

"Exactly," Kiryuu said forcefully. "You can't remember because they never happened. You came to this world at the precise moment you describe. You can't remember anything you did before that point. That is a sure sign of being in a dream." At this, Alan slouched onto the garbage pile, massaging his head, his face contorted with fury. It was a full minute while he processed the information, and forced himself to admit the awful truth he had been trying to deny.

"Son of a bitch!" he snarled. "I suspected from the start, but I didn't want to believe it..." His eyes widened. "Those faces on the TV should have been what confirmed it, but I kept trying to tell myself otherwise..." He looked over at Kiryuu, peering at him intently. "So what are you doing here? Am I just talking to myself?"

"No," Kiryuu said. "I am not some extension of your psyche. I'm an extension of my own." He sighed, and slouched down onto the ground; he had been hiding his tail under the rags, and now let it slide free. "I too am trapped in some dream world. Spending so long in there is threatening to make me forget who I am and where I should be going, just as it is with you. That is the poison that these worlds fill you with. I barely had enough strength to send this projection of myself through the void, seeking help." He sniffed the air around him and then looked back at Alan. "I have been watching your movements. I suspect that the architect that brought you here has a different method of keeping its victims incarcerated in their minds. It must craft dreams which it believes its victims won't try to escape from, giving them everything they ever wished for. Of course, the illusion isn't perfect; looking too closely reveals that certain details are missing, such as things only vaguely recollected not being given true form. I recognise these occurrences from my own prison. Perhaps your captor believed that you would not try to look too closely at the small details to notice." He saw that Alan was now looking deeply troubled, and tried to sound sympathetic. "I'm so sorry, Alan, but this world really is too good to be true."

Alan shook himself, his eyes closed tight. He knew that what Kiryuu was saying had to be true; after what he had seen in the Foundation building, there could be no other explanation. To have his old life back only for it to be snatched away again was cutting him deep. He then looked back at Kiryuu, for there was one thing he did not understand.

"If you're the real Kiryuu," he said, "then you must know where you are." He scratched his head, forcing himself to remember the life that had almost been forgotten. "We... that is, my crew and I... we're out there looking for you. You must know where you are."

"I'm afraid that I don't," Kiryuu replied. It was then that he gave an odd smile, in spite of the fear on his face. "Even if I did, I would have half a mind not to tell you. I know you too well; you don't like having things handed to you on a silver platter."

That settled it for Alan. Only the real Kiryuu could have known him so well. He struggled to remember the faces that had appeared on the television; the faces of his crew, waiting for him back in reality. Holding onto those memories was like trying to hold onto water in his cupped hands, and he feared that if he didn't leave this place soon those memories would be lost forever. He looked over at Kiryuu, who was now visibly trembling and holding a claw up to his head, as if he had a sudden migraine.

"I can't maintain this connection much longer," he stammered. "I feel so weak... I don't want to go back there... I can't..." He looked at Alan with an expression of great pain, and Alan could see actual tears forming in the reptilian eyes. "Alan... the tortures... the pain that he puts me through is unbearable. If I go back, I don't know if I can..."

Seeing Kiryuu in such distress brought Alan's memories back to him like a tidal wave. He remembered the promises he had made, especially the one he had made to himself to bring Kiryuu back home. Now seeing Kiryuu like this served to harden his resolve. He moved towards Kiryuu and placed one hand on his shoulder.

"Kiryuu, look at me," he said forcefully, trying not to tremble himself as he held Kiryuu's claw in his other hand. The bio-mechanical reptile looked at him, eyes shining with tears.

"If you had enough strength to get here," Alan continued, trying to make his voice sound confident, "then you can get out of whatever prison is keeping you. I don't recall any prison ever being able to hold you. You never let anything stop you before. Whatever's happening now can't be any worse than what we've already been through. Now stop wasting time feeling sorry for yourself!"

He desperately tried to think of a way out of this dream world, but there did not seem to be any obvious exit. For all he knew it could stretch on for infinity, never allowing him to leave. This left only one viable alternative. If he remembered correctly, there was a set of cliffs in the bay quite close to the building. If he was right, he had a way of waking himself up. He turned back to Kiryuu.

"I've got a plan," he said. "Can you walk?" Kiryuu looked in the direction of the cliffs, and immediately understood what Alan's plan was.

"No," he said simply. "Carrying out this plan here won't change anything. I would just be sent back to my dream prison. I am being pulled back there anyway..." He looked at Alan, pleadingly. "When you get out, find me. If I don't make it out of my prison by that time, find a way to save me. I beg you... Save me from these nightmares."

Kiryuu's behaviour startled Alan. He had never known Kiryuu to actually beg for help before. Whatever trouble he was in had to be very serious indeed to drive him into such a state. He kneeled in front of Kiryuu, holding his claw in both hands.

"We'll find you, Kiryuu," he said firmly. "Just hang in there, wherever you are. Remember that we're coming. Don't give up on us." He thought he saw an expression of the greatest relief crossing Kiryuu's face before he grunted, as if suffering a sharp pain. He looked towards the cliff, and then looked piercingly at Alan.

"Go," he said simply. Alan nodded, and got to his feet, stepping away from Kiryuu. He looked over in the direction of the cliffs, and began to walk resolutely towards them. After a few steps, he turned to look back at Kiryuu, but when he did so he saw that the bio-mechanical being, his one connection to reality in this realm, was gone.

Alan started to march towards the cliffs, the wind whipping fiercely around him. He was pelted by the raindrops, and as he looked upwards lightning suddenly flashed in a great wide fork across the sky. It was as if this fantasy had realised what Alan was about to do and was rebelling against it. Shielding his eyes from the downpour, he soon reached the edge of the cliff.

Alan had been raised near a set of cliffs in his birth-town of Whitby in England, so he was used to being around them and had considered himself immune to heights. Peering over the edge of the cliffs, he watched the enormous waves crashing against the rocks below. A sheer drop of well over two hundred feet was in front of him, and in the most ironic twist it was the best chance that Alan had. He steadied his breathing and prepared to jump.

"Alan!" a voice suddenly called above the rumbling thunder and crashing waves. Turning around, Alan saw that it was Shinoda who had spoken, running along the field towards him. He stopped short of Alan, gasping for breath.

"When I heard that you had..." Shinoda began, but trailed away when he saw where Alan was standing. He looked at Alan's face, and his expression became one of confusion. "What's going on? What are you doing?"

Alan didn't know why he was wasting his time talking to Shinoda. This thing was not Shinoda; he was certain now that it was some mockery, an illusion constructed from Alan's memory. He turned back towards the cliffs and inched closer to the drop.

"I'm getting the fuck out of this place," he muttered, more to himself to try to steady his nerves. "I'm waking myself up." As Shinoda watched Alan move closer to the drop, he realised what was about to happen.

"Have you lost your mind, Alan?" the scientist shouted. "Why are you doing this? Think about everything you've got here; your job, your friends... What about Miki? You're really going to abandon her?"

Alan paused. It was evident that this imitation was hitting a sore spot. Alan knew that he would have given anything to be back with the people he had loved and lost over all the long centuries. In this dream world he had that. Doubt was also beginning to fill his mind; what if he was wrong? What if he didn't wake up when he hit the rocks below? Then he snarled and shook himself, ashamed of even having such thoughts. Doubt was a luxury which he could not afford. In any case, even if he was wrong and he didn't wake up, he knew that he would be unable to keep going in this world, knowing that it was all a twisted lie. When he was close to the edge as was possible, he prepared to jump.

"No!" Shinoda suddenly shouted, and Alan felt his arms clamp themselves around his shoulders. "Don't do it!" He proceeded to drag Alan away from the cliff. The scientist was surprisingly strong, more than what Alan remembered of him. He struggled as hard as he could against Shinoda's grip, desperately trying to plant his feet firmly into the ground, but the rain had made the mud loose and slippery, and the cliff was getting further and further away from him.

After half a minute of struggling, Alan managed to swing his foot behind him, tripping Shinoda's leg. The scientist was thrown off-balance, and Alan snatched the opportunity to lean forward with every ounce of strength he could muster. Caught off-guard, Shinoda was thrown right over Alan's shoulder, releasing his grip. Shinoda hit the ground hard, the wind knocked right out of him. Now free, Alan pressed his foot down onto Shinoda's neck. He had every mind to crush the life out of this illusion now for daring to insult Shinoda's memory. As he got a good look at the struggling, choking illusion, he was now sure that he could see the faint outline of something else. Though the image was very faint, he was positive that the outline resembled some kind of unspeakable, insect-like abomination...

He looked back towards the cliff, and realised that he was wasting time. He knew that this had to end now. He raised his foot, and watched Shinoda cough and splutter, his face a mask of fury.

"If I'm wrong," he snarled, "then I'll see you in your nightmares!"

With that, he ran as fast as his legs could carry him towards the cliff, and took a running jump straight over the edge. Upon seeing the rocks quickly approaching him, panic now set every nerve in Alan's body on fire. He felt the wind and rain whipping past him as he fell, and did his best to ignore Shinoda's anguished cry from the top of the cliff. As the rocks got ever closer he shut his eyes tight, bracing himself for impact.

0

His eyes snapped open and he sat bolt upright. A sharp cry of shock escaped his lungs and he panted heavily, scared out of his mind. He blinked several times and looked around him, trying to force his eyes to focus properly. When his eyes focused, he saw that he was now in a small well-lit room with shelves full of medical equipment and various liquids. A few seconds passed before he realised that he was in the _Serenity_'s infirmary. On a table close to his bed was what looked like a pair of headphones and a microphone, attached to a small box. Assorted monitoring equipment stood close by, with wires coming out of it which were attached to small pads on either side of Alan's head. He raised his hands and pulled the pads off, and proceeded to do the same to other pads attached to his chest.

As he did this, he realised that he was no longer human. His skin was once again covered in scales, and his hands were once again animalistic claws. Looking further down he caught sight of his long tail snaking over the end of the bed. He felt his face, and it too was changed, back as the twisted mixture of reptile and human that he was familiar with. He opened his mouth and felt his teeth, which once again consisted solely of sharp fangs.

He sat numb for a moment, hardly daring to believe that he was truly back. If he was being honest with himself, in the final moments before he hit the water, the doubt had started to cross his mind that his plan would work. He held his head in his hands, for the memories of what had happened to him in that fantasy realm were still very fresh, and very painful.

It was then that he heard footsteps approaching quickly from outside, and within seconds the door to the infirmary was thrown open. He saw the brown-haired, boiler-suited form of Rachel stood in the doorway. When she saw Alan, her face lit up.

"Captain!" she shouted, running towards Alan. Before he could stop her, she had wrapped his arms tightly around him. Alan was in such a shock that he was unable to return the hug.

"Rachel, I..." he gasped. Perhaps realising that Alan wasn't in much of a mood to be hugged, Rachel backed away.

"I'm sorry, Captain," she stammered like an excitable schoolgirl, "but it's just that Alistair said that you... then you were... and Bishop said you were... It's just really good to have you back!" Before Alan could say anything she was already running out of the infirmary like she was being chased by a swarm of bees. Alan heard her shouting "He's up and about! He's up and about!"

Alan now felt enough strength in his legs to move out of the infirmary, though he wasn't so sure how he'd cope on the stairs leading up to the dining area. He took his time getting up and allowed himself to get used to his body again. At first everything felt unreal, as it had done when he had woken up in the dream prison. He jokingly told himself that he would have to get a good look at the crew on Tom Jimenez's ship at the fleet; if they were a bunch of faceless drones he would throw himself out of the nearest airlock. He managed to reach the dining area to find Rachel approaching him again, half-dragging Alistair along.

"Come on, Rachel," Alistair said wearily. "Even if he's awake I doubt he wants all of us yelling at him." He looked up and saw Alan hobbling towards them. The gargoyle grinned and moved over to him.

"Good to have you back, Captain," he said, grabbing Alan's claw. "Feelin' any better?"

"A little," Alan replied, trying to put on a brave face. "Better than I was, at any rate."

"I'll bet," Alistair chuckled. "You need a lift back to your cabin? Going for a lie-down, maybe?"

"No," Alan replied, shaking his head. "I've slept enough. I'd rather be up on the flight deck."

"Your choice, Captain," Alistair shrugged, taking Alan's arm. "I'll give you a lift up anyway."

Walking down the corridor past the crew cabins, Alan remained silent. He felt as if he needed to talk to his crew about what had happened and what he had learned, even though a part of him was very reluctant to do so. He wasn't sure he wanted to relive the terrible events in that dream. As the trio approached the flight deck Alan heard José speaking. Outside, he could see that the ship was speeding through slip-space.

"God-damn aliens... Everywhere we go aliens just wanna kill us."

"The Sangheili do not," Bishop's voice countered calmly.

"Not yet, anyway," José spat. "Too bad Captain Ugly can't see that."

Alan gave a loud cough, standing in the doorway. The last thing he needed was another one of José's anti-alien diatribes, and he glared at the Hispanic gunner coldly. José turned and saw Alan. It took him a couple of seconds to register that Alan was awake and rather unhappy, and so he turned awkwardly away.

"Okay..." he muttered. "I think I'll just shut up now..."

"That's the best idea you've had all day," Alan muttered. Alistair and Rachel helped him into the co-pilot's seat.

"Second-best," Alistair chimed in. "It was his idea to drag you out of that bunker."

"I was just hopin' to get a shot at the big bug, puto," José shrugged. "Saving the Captain's ass was just a bonus, no offence."

"None taken," Alan said. José was still trying to maintain his macho posturing, but he looked awkwardly away as if he wanted to say something but thought better of it. "I appreciate it," Alan added. José just waved off the compliment in a 'don't mention it' manner. He was also amazed that neither José nor Alistair had been caught by the creature.

"You feel up for talking about what happened?" Alistair asked. Alan nodded; he reasoned that, while the crew was present, he had to get this out of the way now.

"Well, before you ask," Alistair continued, "none of us got a good look at the beastie in the bunker. We didn't fancy sticking around for a photo opportunity. I can tell you one thing about it, though," he said, his expression turning dark. "I'm sure it's from the Far Realm."

"What makes you so sure?" Alan asked, sounding more alert. He had heard very little about the Far Realm, only that it was the source of terrible, inherently corruptive powers. Alistair was particularly susceptible to it due to his exposure to the energies a week ago.

"I felt the same way there that I did around Ishran," Alistair explained. "You know, as if I wasn't in control of my body and it was going to change on me at any moment into god-knows-what? Whatever attacked us down there, I'm sure it's been exposed to the Far Realm at some point."

"Or is native to it," Bishop said.

"What do you mean?" Alan asked, puzzled.

"I've been studying the datapad that José retrieved," Bishop replied. "That bunker was the site of some kind of black project which began long before the war. Their intent was to develop some kind of portal technology, which would allow for instantaneous transportation across the galaxy to connecting gateways. According to the log, a week ago the portal was to undergo its first major trial, and open a passage to a sister gate back on Earth."

"Let me guess," Alan said. "They missed."

"If you wish to put it like that," Bishop said. "The scientist who wrote the log claims that they went further than anyone had anticipated... and something came out of the other end." Alan closed his eyes. He was sure that he didn't need to announce what everyone was thinking; that the portal had opened up to the Far Realm and one of its inhabitants had come through the gate, causing the carnage that they had witnessed.

"Those poor souls..." Rachel said, sadly.

"The scientist who the datapad belonged to was the last to die," Bishop went on. "He managed to hide while his fellows tried to fight the creature off. The standoff didn't last for longer than two days. This creature used some form of gas to put the victims to sleep, and then coated them in that oil substance which you observed. A sample was never retrieved for study, but somehow it transformed the researchers into the abominations which attacked you. They seemed to have become minions of the creature. All of this sounds very similar to rumours I have heard among the fleet of the Flood, rumours which were extremely troubling. The three of you were extraordinarily lucky to escape."

Alan had heard the 'Flood' mentioned by several people he had encountered, but none of them had explained exactly what it was. The clearest idea he had of it came from Otto 'Gamam, the Arbiter of the Sangheili people, who had compared it to similar parasitic entities Alan had encountered in the past such as the Invae and the Destroyer parasite. Everybody spoke of it fearfully, but had assured him that it had been erased from existence. Alan wasn't so sure, and he felt that he would have to have words with Cujo about it.

An idea also dawned on him as to how this creature made these 'minions'. The dreams had to have been used to keep the subconscious of the victims pacified, allowing the creature to manipulate the body however it saw fit. If José and Alistair hadn't been there, the same would have happened to him, and that was a horrifying thought.

"Uh, carry on," Alan said, when he noticed just how quiet it was. It was as if everybody was expecting him to say something.

"Uh, well," Alistair said, "after we got you out Bishop picked us up. We told him what happened, and after looking over the notes from the datapad he decided to tell Wago what had happened."

"I didn't wanna say anything," José interjected. "We barely got away from that bug; we should have just got outta Dodge."

"Something that dangerous could not have been allowed to live," Bishop said reasonably. "It would have posed a threat to all life had it been allowed to leave Eletania. It took time, but Wago's forces were able to glass the bunker and the surrounding area. The creatures you faced are dead, and the technology that brought them to this galaxy is destroyed." Alan couldn't help widening his eyes. He never would have expected such a ruthless action from their amiable pilot.

"In the meantime," Rachel chimed in, "we tried to bring you round. Bishop had this brilliant idea of hooking up earphones and filling your head with static. The microphone was my idea. José had the bright idea of shaking you and slapping you." She threw a scornful look at José; one which even the gunner seemed to shrink under.

"None of my readings indicated that you were completely comatose," Bishop said. "All the scans suggested that you were asleep, and the high amount of REM activity indicated intense dreaming. I theorised that our outside actions would manifest themselves somehow in your dream, perhaps even waking you up. Unfortunately that was not the case. By the looks of things, however, you didn't need our help."

"Actually, I did," Alan said, getting back to his feet and putting on a brave smile. "I owe you guys a lot."

"Uh, you're welcome," Alistair said as Alan walked past him. "Uh, what happened in that dream anyway? What did that thing do to you?"

"What does it matter?" Alan asked simply. "It was only a dream, right? I think I'll have that nap after all." He didn't feel comfortable relaying the contents of the dream to the others; it was all too personal. He headed back to his cabin, leaving his crew at a loss for words.

In his cabin, he took a good look at himself in the small shaving mirror. His golden cat-like eyes, set into the mutated lizard face, peered back at him. Sighing, he crossed over to his bunk and lay awake on it. He kept seeing Kiryuu's terrified face, floating in front of him as if it belonged to a ghost. He now had confirmation that Kiryuu was alive, and everything that Alan had seen in that dream had hardened his resolve to find him. He thought back over the people in his past who had helped him to reach this point; Shinoda and Miki in-particular. That dream had insulted their memory; to fail in their mission would be doing no less.

**THE END**


End file.
